Toby Harnden was the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC, from 2006 to 2011. Click here for Toby's website. Follow him on Twitter here @tobyharnden and on Facebook here. He is the author of the bestselling book Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story Britain's War in Afghanistan.

US government accuses alleged Cuban spies of reading Graham Greene

Buried away on page 16 of the United States government’s document outlining its opposition to an appeal of the detention order imposed on Kendall Myers, the former State Department analyst, and his wife Gwen Myers, is another example of their reading material.

On its first appearance in 1957, Hugh and Graham Greene's "The Spy's Bedside Book" provoked a storm of interest, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, 100 copies were bought by East German Intelligence. This classic anthology, with a new introduction by the former head of MI5, Stella Rimington, includes stories by some of the great writers on spying and many practitioners, including Ian Fleming and John Buchan, Sir Robert Baden-Powell and Belle Boyd, Walter Schellenberg, Sir Paul Dukes and Vladimir Petrov, and from the golden age of mystery and suspense, William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim.There are also some unexpected figures: William Blake, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Mann, all suspected of spying in three great wars. How can you hide messages in a boiled egg? Why should you always put pepper in your vodka when in Russia? Answers to these questions and much more can be found in this thrilling collection, which will enthral readers once again with its tales of espionage from a bygone era.

I’m not sure whether possession of a Graham Greene book really adds much to the government’s case against the Myers, which in the view of Magistrate Judge John Facciola “seems at this point insuperable”.

Such evidence, while not proving any offence, might make it harder for a defendant to profess complete ignorance of how subversive activities are conducted.

Another interesting detail in the court document is the US government’s mention of a previous criminal conviction of Kendall Myers:

While the government is still researching the matter, it appears that, at least, Kendall Myers has a prior criminal record. Kendall Myers was convicted in December 1976 of negligent homicide in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Under the federal sentencing guidelines, that conviction will count towards his criminal history score as it was imposed within 10 years of the defendant’s commencement of the instant criminal conduct on behalf of CuIS. See U.S.S.G.§ 4A1.2(e)(2).

I believe the date of the conviction is incorrect. In fact, it was in March 1977 that Myers was convicted of the “negligent homicide” of a girl of 16 he had killed in a November 1975 car accident.

The previous conviction is significant because it increases the range of the sentence Kendall Myers faces – and, therefore, also the possible leverage over him in terms of a plea deal.

According to the government’s calculations, this is between 15 years, 8 months and 19 years, seven months. In comparison, Gwen Myers faces between 14 years and 17 years, six months.

In another indication of a hardball approach, the court document also states that the government would probably seek more than the normal guideline sentence. Note also the mention of "any post-trial conviction" – the message being that the Myers should seek a deal because going to trial and losing would in all likelihood result in a much heftier sentence:

Given the gravity of their offenses, the government would likely be seeking sentences in excess of these advisory guideline ranges following any post-trial conviction of the defendants.